Entertainment | Celebrity

Shah Rukh in the thick of another controversy

India hits back at Pakistan over Shah Rukh Khan’s security

IANS
Published: 10:58 January 29, 2013

Image Credit: IANS
Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan celebrates his 47th birthday with media and fans at his villa Mannat in Mumbai.

India is capable of securing its citizens, Home Secretary R.K. Singh said Tuesday in response to Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malek’s statement that the Indian government should provide security to actor Shah Rukh Khan.

“We are quite capable of looking after security of our own citizens... let him [Malek] worry about security of his own,” Singh said.

Khan found himself in the thick of another controversy after his comments on being a Muslim led to Jamaat-ud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed saying the star could move to Pakistan.

The 47-year-old actor wrote: “I sometimes become the inadvertent object of political leaders who choose to make me a symbol of all that they think is wrong and unpatriotic about Muslims in India.”

“There have been occasions when I have been accused of bearing allegiance to our neighbouring nation rather than my own country — this even though I am an Indian, whose father fought for the freedom of India. Rallies have been held where leaders have exhorted me to leave and return what they refer to my original homeland,” added the superstar of Hindi cinema.

He went on say that he became so sick of being mistaken for some crazed terrorist, “who co-incidentally carries the same name as mine that I made a film subtly titled ‘My Name Is Khan’ [and I am not a terrorist] to prove a point”.

“Ironically, I was interrogated at the airport for hours about my last name when I was going to promote the film in America for the first time,” said the actor.